Should Your Kid Join a Traveling Sports Team?

Many moms and dads whose kids play youth sports want to think their child is an elite athlete. Visions of college athletic scholarships and perhaps even playing professionally dance in these parents’ minds. These dreams most often end up as delusions.

Youth program and high school coaches will agree that too many parents pressure them to play their kid more because he or she is “special.” The truth is the number of preteen and teen athletes elite enough to go pro in a few years is close to zero. Less than 2% of high school athletes earn college athletic scholarships.

Instead of focusing on the pipe-dream of watching their son or daughter play college sports on national television in the future, parents need to focus on keeping a healthy balance in their youngster’s daily life and yearly schedule of activities.

Pros and Cons of Highly Competitive Youth Sports

Yes, there are benefits of kids playing sports at a highly competitive level. Joining a travel/club/select sports team typically means fun trips traveling to distant tournaments. These allow youngsters to bond with teammates and parents to bond with the other parents. Additionally, there are examples of some elementary and middle school youngsters who made it on their high school teams or even got to play in college mainly due to the skills they developed by playing travel/club/select sports.

The benefits of parents signing up their children for highly competitive sports participation ends there. The fun of traveling to tournaments dissipates as soon as the team begins to travel too often and to locales that are too expensive. Furthermore, kids who play on costly, competitive teams as preteens often end up spending much of their high school athletics time sitting on the bench. That is, if they even make the cut at tryouts and get placed on their high school team. 

Most notably, playing travel/club/select sports can lead to burnout (both a child’s and a parent’s) and increased risk of injuries due to stress on the body. Highly competitive sports at a young age will also conflict with a child’s overall development and faith-life growth. A child who hyper focuses on one sport or one activity does not devote enough time to homework, family activities, and going to church. Today’s competitive sports leagues flood families’ weekends with multiple games. The result is mom, dad, and siblings often can do nothing but sit in a gym or in the grandstands from Saturday morning to Sunday night.

Because highly competitive sports create many concerns regarding a child’s proper development, it is important that parents make themselves and their kids take their foot off the gas when it comes to joining travel/club/select sports teams that demand too much.  

Pick the Right Type of Team

Mothers and fathers should want their youngsters to develop confidence in a variety of roles. They should choose teams and leagues where everyone is guaranteed minimum playing time and no players are stuck in only one position. 

In youth sports, no players should consistently be sitting on the bench. If an elementary or middle school child is playing on a team where he or she only gets into the game for sparse minutes, parents have two options – have a private talk with the coach or find another team for your kid.

Similarly, no youth or preteen athlete should be restricted to one position. For example, there are coaches in youth sports who will only play their “so-so” athletes in the spot that is least “damaging” to the team. You will see this on a poorly coached Little League baseball team where a certain player is always the one who ends up in right field.

Diversify

Further counsel for parents is to make sure their youngsters play multiple sports. When parents allow (or make) their elementary or middle school child to eliminate all sports but one, they are hindering all-around athletic development. Multi-sport youngsters learn a variety of sports skills that translate to improved athleticism. Plus, playing more than one sport decreases the chance a kid will burn-out in a few years. 

The best plan for a child’s physical and social development, along with positive mental health, is to diversify sports. This would also mean the child should not play any sport year-round. For example, it is healthier for a youngster to join a soccer league that only plays six months out of the year, and then when that season ends, to join a basketball team that only plays for three months. Just as parents would want their academic-child to explore a variety of school subjects and not just do math problems all day, so too should they want their athletic-child to try a variety of sports.

Further advice for parents of 4-to-14 year-olds who play sports is to not join a team or compete in an individual sport like gymnastics that meets every day. Likewise, avoid a team or competition where the coach requires the athlete to not play any other sport. It’s too early for this much intensity. 

Sometimes, it is solely the middle-school child himself or herself who is extremely dedicated to making the high school team in the future and desires to get in as much practice and playing time as possible. To meet this objective, instead of joining the “best” (aka “most expensive”) travel/club/select team, the kid simply needs to find teams where he or she will get mostly equal playing time with the other players, and where both teammates and opponents are all at a similar skill level. 

The Best Sports Leagues Are the Less Expensive Ones

For all of these reasons above, parents would do well to comprehend the realization that playing in leagues and on teams that are less competitive and more recreational is the best course for their elementary and middle school age children. These could include local CYO, parks department, and YMCA-type leagues, which can give kids similar benefits as travel/club/select teams without the extra cost and added pressure.

Besides costing less, these less competitive, more recreational athletic programs will rarely disrupt family time, Sunday Mass attendance, and school work responsibilities. These teams won’t be practicing more than a couple of times a week. And if family priorities mean the child needs to miss a weekend game or travel tournament, there won’t be a concern of losing money or losing one’s roster spot. 

Some young athletes may be worried that only playing in seasonal, recreational programs will result in less opportunities for practice time and game playing, and thus less of a gain in skills. But parents can supplement this missed time before or after dinner or on the weekend by serving as the “home” coaches. They can work with the kid at home on shooting free throws in the driveway or passing the soccer ball in the backyard. They can also research opportunities for their young one to participate in low-cost clinics and summer camps that will provide skill development balanced with fun.

So What’s the Bottom Line?

Let kids be kids. Childhood goes by fast.

Parents should encourage their youngsters to play numerous sports. They should also make their sons and daughters take time off from athletics at various times during the week and year to enjoy other aspects of life.

Frequent opportunities to ride bikes, swim at the beach, play a neighborhood game of hide-and-seek, and have a water balloon fight won’t help one’s child earn a college sports scholarship. But these activities could help him or her develop into a well-rounded, well-adjusted young adult who avoids burning out before even getting a driver’s license. Additionally, the money saved by not paying the exorbitant travel/club/select expenses can be put toward college costs.

A youngster’s future-adult-self will look back and appreciate that he or she did not spend so much time and his or her parents did not spend so much money just to focus on one sport year-round in hopes to get that elusive scholarship or miraculously make that pro team.